Let's Talk UNLV

0:00:00
Alright, welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNLV on KUNV. You're with co-host Keith and Renee. And if you don't know, I'm solo today. Renee left me hanging. My sister from another mister. But we're going to carry on anyway. And so I'm excited today to talk about the Career Services Office. You know, we all look into, you know, we go to school to have a career. And I'm glad to have Eileen McGarry, who's executive director of Career Services, and then also Mark Chisholm, who is a social media ambassador. Welcome to the show, Eileen and Mark. Hello. Hello. Thank you, Keith. And so we'll ask Mark to do the same, what his role is within the office.

0:00:55
Certainly, Keith, it's great to be included in this. So I am the Executive Director of Career Services for the UNLV campus, and really we consider our office sort of a hub for career services resources, and we provide services kind of across the disciplines, but the good thing for students and alumni to know is that you have a whole network of more general and specialized career services and career centers. And many of our, some of our professional colleges like law, hospitality, business, engineering have specific career centers focused on the special needs. And we work with students across majors, as well as focus on our art sciences students and help them with the whole process of preparing for their careers, getting experience, and then launching a successful career upon graduation and after.

0:01:50
All right, thank you. Mark, could you share a little bit about your role?

0:01:54
I am the social media ambassador for Career Services. Basically I am your friendly face of Career Services. So when you see me around campus, feel free to ask any questions about Career Services or just basically anything that you need. I run the social media also, so feel free to follow us on Instagram at at UNLV Career Services.

0:02:21
All right, well we'll start out by, I guess, Eileen asking you, why should students know about the Career Center?

0:02:28
And asking me, because I was thinking Mark can also fill that in. So a couple of things. What we do, we look a lot at what helps students be successful after they graduate. What kinds of things will help you really launch and be successful in a career? And a lot of students think of us as the last place you go before you graduate. When in actuality, we should be the first place. Because if we don't do the work of figuring out kind of what our life holds and what we need to do to navigate our way through it, then it's much harder to launch that first job after graduation and then be successful in your career. So the biggest thing students should know is early and often and to start engaging with us right away.

0:03:18
And then Mark, did you have anything to add or share?

0:03:21
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that the Career Services Office provides is resume building. I know when I was in, during my undergrad, I'm a grad student now, during my undergrad I needed help with my resume like every single like semester because there was either there was something new to add or I didn't know like how to add something or I didn't know how to format my resume.

0:03:43
So our peer career coaches can literally will sit down and help you like tune out your resume to make it ready for your career that you want.

0:03:53
Yeah. You know, all the different words that you can use to describe your different skills for your resume and all the different samples. I thought that was very useful for me, you know, back in the day when I was a student.

0:04:17
And a great part about the career services that we have, we have peer career coaches who will sit down and help you and walk you through that process of helping you create your resume. And that's one of the models that we're proud of because we want students to experience this from people who they're comfortable with. You know, you can also go to more experienced experts, but our peers are really trained and really understand it and can relate to our students. And that's one of the places that students fall down the most is often their resumes are not put together well, and it makes a big difference in opening doors for interviews and other other opportunities

0:04:55
in your life and then Eileen and Mark could you talk a little bit about the difference between The peer career coaches and the more seasoned professionals who may serve in that capacity Yes, so our seasoned career professionals are

0:05:08
for the most part our master's degree professionals or professionals who have been working in the field for quite a while really tuned in to the employer markets that we work with and constantly listening to their advice and have done a lot of work with the student populations in helping them shape their professional pathways. The career coaching model was developed because we know and understand that often we rely on information from our peers, peer-to-peer information. So our peer coaches get 100 hours of training and they're undergraduate coaches. So while you might have really in-depth questions and somebody who really wants to dig in deeper, that's what our experts are for, but our peer coaches can help you with all the basic essential tools, resume writing, LinkedIn profiles, because they've experienced it and we've coached them professionally so that they're ready to help out.

0:06:15
And we know how coveted student worker positions are on campus. So how does someone who is interested in student employment get connected to becoming a career coach?

0:06:31
Mark, what will we look for? What will we look for in a peer career coach? I mean, I guess, I mean, what I would personally want is someone who is level-headed, who has a clear understanding of what it takes to, like, get that career, and can just relate to the students personally. Like our career coaches, I've met them all. They're great and they can really relate. Like when I was talking to them, it's one of the things that I like bonded with most is that they were normal students. So they're your everyday students. They weren't like the top of the top class students or they weren't like, they were your normal everyday students who seemed that they had a grasp on getting that next step in taking in finding your career and that's what I like. So yeah and I think they you're right Mark what's most important to us is that they're relatable and they're they're sincerely interested in how to develop other people and they work on developing themselves as well and we also pay a lot of attention to whether these peer coaches are ready to work with diverse students, different walks of life. That's key also.

0:07:43
And then Eileen, could you speak to how the Career Services Office partners with academic side or instruction to ensure that students have the skills that employers are looking for today or by the time they complete their degree programs?

0:08:00
Yeah, Keith, we offer our services, interactive presentations, group sessions. We go into classrooms, so a lot of the professors invite us into classrooms to work with students. We also partner with professors and even student organizations to help them get professional development, to get them prepared. And with professors when it comes to, it might be career assignments or activities that they want help with. We have a lot of key tools, technology tools, from our Handshake platform that actually allows you to see student employment positions and job postings and internships, to our Job Scan. It actually analyzes your resume to see if you've got relevant skills listed for what you're applying for, to even mock interview software and more coming online. But all of that we go into student groups, student organizations, as well as classrooms. Anywhere we can we can touch students and help them. I'd also add that Mark works with us to put things online, so if you go to our social media sites you're going to get some coaching on how to prepare for the upcoming career fair. Yes. Right now we are putting together our IGTV series with one of our career career coaches, Jasmine, who is telling you guys all about how you can prepare for the career fair, which is this week, by the way.

0:09:31
All right. Now, what what what interview and tips do students typically most benefit from? I would say,

0:09:40
I don't know if Mark was going to chime in here, but I would say that one of the biggest things you want to prepare for, well, two things. One is somebody asks if they ask you to tell them about yourself, that kind of 30 minute, what we call elevator pitch about who you are, how you relate, how your skills might relate to that organization, what you're preparing for. So it's basically kind of selling your assets, but also making it a relatable conversation. And the second thing is to be prepared with examples. You literally have to share what kinds of things you've done, specific examples that show them that you have the skills or competencies or relatable profile that they're looking for. If you go on social media today, we actually just uploaded a video on elevator pitching just so everybody can get ready for that tomorrow and the rest of the week when we have the career fair inside of the union.

0:10:44
I know we've been, you know, with the social media and I know that the role of social media plays has probably increased significantly since the pandemic. And as we transition back to in person or hybrid. So how how has career services changed its model in light of the pandemic? And as we transition back to in person or a hybrid setting? Yeah.

0:11:09
Yeah, so actually we offer a lot of virtual coaching and virtual presentation sessions through the pandemic. And now we have a model that we call the Career Studio, and that's an ability for students and alumni to walk in and pop in. We call it pop up, our Career Studio pop up, and that's available in the SSC 201 outside of our suite, but then we also take appointments virtual, really in the multiple formats that help students kind of get the service where they're at. We're really trying to meet students where they're at. We go to them, we allow them to do virtual, in-person appointments, whatever meets their needs. I'll also add that career fairs are similar. We are doing our first hybrid career fair. Today is a virtual series of career sessions. We have 74 employers ready to meet our students and alumni. And you just simply get on our Handshake platform and then sign up for a talk session with them. And then the next three days are in-person fairs and we're kind of doing more of a mini fair concept where tomorrow will be community impact employers, so non-profits, government organizations, education, and then the following day will be all industries where you can find hospitality, business, communications, those kinds of employers, and the final day STEM for our engineering, science, technology students.

0:12:53
And they mark this question is for you. You know, I'm social media illiterate. You know, I'm going to just go ahead and put that out there. I'm just figuring out on Facebook how to like stuff. And I think I had to ask my wife over the weekend, you know, how do I share something on my story or page that someone else had posted? Or how do I get myself added to something that's on there. So could you share from a social media perspective how what's your philosophy in terms of how we leverage social media to

0:13:24
complement and promote the work and events that are happening through the Career Services Office? So with that, basically, I'd like to take a more of an approach of using our as a community and like our students. So a big part of me becoming the social media ambassador was my face being the face of career services. I believe that we connect more when we see a person's face, especially during now with the pandemic and how we literally haven't seen people's faces for like a whole year. So my goal is mainly to put faces behind career services now. So now you'll see our career coaches. I'm gonna start rolling out, we're gonna start doing an alumni spotlight soon to show the retention rate. Not retention rate, but to show that when we graduate,

0:14:16
are you an LV student? When we graduate, we go and then we go and graduate and get these jobs that we have been aspiring to get from UNLV. So that's what I plan to envision

0:14:29
for our social media aspect.

0:14:32
Aileen, I want to ask you the question around soft skills. Like, what's the importance of soft skills, having strong soft skills? Are there certain soft skills that students should have? Or we hear the term 21st century skills. So how does Career Services approach sort of helping students understand the role or the importance of the soft skills. Yeah

0:14:52
absolutely Keith. We look a lot at what's trending in the workplace and how students are going to need to prepare for not necessarily always the jobs that are there today but even what you're going to see a decade out. And that's important to the university in preparing our students well. The other things we look for are what are employers truly seeking when students graduate that may not be learned in curriculum or in your major, but they're truly what we call competencies that influence your performance. So this campus has looked closely at that and we've actually identified six core competencies that are highly valued by employers and where we feel our students can lead and develop. And that's really what some people refer to them as soft skills, some people refer to them as power skills, which I like better. We already have worked on an online badge that students can obtain for the first, the top three, and they are communications, and that's, we're talking verbal, non-verbal, interpersonal communications, that leads in every career field, bar none, top competency, top soft skill that students across the board will need to develop to succeed. Cultural intelligence is the next one, call it CQ aptitude, then professionalism and how committed you are to your profession and where you're going. And then we will work to develop with our online education three more badges of the top six, which include emotional intelligence, leadership, and critical thinking, what we do every day to problem solve in the workplace. And Mark's tested out some of these badges, so he's already tested out some of the competency. I actually have all three of the ones that are live, and the communication is personally my favorite because I see so many of my peers now who don't have some of these skills who could be far better in like where they're at if they had just like if they knew their body tone meant this, if they knew that they could speak with more, like when you just spoke with more like confidence that your message would come across more. Like certain people just don't know that and that's what these badges, that's what this program teaches.

0:17:29
So I thought it was great.

0:17:31
So Mark, so since you went through it firsthand, what are some of the changes that you noticed within yourself going through that process and or what has been some of the feedback of the students who have gone through one or more of these badging processes?

0:17:49
So I know personally, it just taught me how to communicate a little better. It just taught me how to speak with more confidence because I naturally do that, but then everybody has their moment. So it just taught me that that's actually a good skill to speak with confidence, because that will get your message across that sometimes you don't know what you're saying, but if you just speak with confidence, you can persuade everybody that you know what you're saying. And sometimes it can actually help you in gaining your confidence, and improving your confidence. So that was my best thing about it, because I think so many people have a confidence issue when it comes to speaking in front of large crowds. So I think a lot of people can take that and just learn from it.

0:18:27
And then, Eileen, I know I don't want to I want to pivot over to I know we've been talking about this. You're how your services support existing students. But I know you also mentioned that you also work with alumni.

0:18:38
Could you talk a little bit about how career services evolved to begin working with the alumni population and some of the things that you offer to the alumni? We basically are organized along with our Alumni Association and so

0:18:56
that makes it easier for us to bring our alumni back in to help our students succeed in their professional journeys as well as help our alum continue to help our alumni. So with Rebels Forever it it doesn't stop when you graduate. You can continue to use career services. And how many of us, even day to day, we know that we need help advancing. It doesn't stop when you graduate. We're constantly evolving, right, and building our skills and hoping to advance. So we do it through career coaching. We always invite our alumni to career fairs. They have access to every system that we provide that helps students and professionals advance in their career fields. And then we also have mentoring platforms that students and alumni get on to help further develop through a personal one-on-one relationship that is focused and devoted to the mentor and the mentee together. And we call that Rebels Forward, and we're growing those platforms as well.

0:20:04
What are ways that alumni can support

0:20:08
existing UNLV students?

0:20:11
So one of them is through the mentoring platforms that we have through Rebels Forward. We are somewhat growing those by cohorts at times. So for example, we have a very active hospitality mentoring program and engineering mentoring program. But now we're adding VETS and we're even looking at an entrepreneurial mentoring platform to start growing. So we're going to, and there also though is an open platform for any student and any mentor to connect to. And then we often will invite alumni to present with us or help us with programs from supporting our students at a career fair to helping us with a certain presentation to to multiple opportunities where they can volunteer and engage with the campus and be surrounded by students.

0:21:07
And there's a wealth of activities and support that's offered through the Career Services Office.

0:21:20
Now, in your career, I mean, what are like what have you learned or how have you adjusted your approach for how career services should operate in the 21st century?

0:21:32
That's a great question. I think the way career services offices are moving, from being sort of that office that everybody had to walk into or make an appointment and visit, to a concept that's campus-wide. We're evolving from thinking of ourselves as just offices that students come and get support from, to a whole career community, where we want to have students, we want our students to have touch points everywhere they go. So even as we talk about examples where we're now providing skill building competencies on Canvas, that's a whole other touch point where we're going into classrooms and providing career content, where our faculty begin to understand how to have career conversations and support. So it's going from a concept of an office to a community that lifts everyone up and helps everyone succeed.

0:22:41
I like that. I think that network, I like that.

0:22:45
And then I would ask you, Mark, what is what would be some advice you would give to students to help them be better prepared to transition from student to professional upon graduation?

0:22:59
As a former UNLV grad of fall 2019 and a current grad student at UNLV, I would just tell everybody to stay positive and work on your resume. Get that resume looked at. Go to the career, I wish I went to career services as an undergrad, I didn't. And I mean, I went later, like I got my resume fine-tuned at a later point, and now I'm happy I did. Go get your resume looked at, and get it looked at again, and get it looked at again. Because that will really be the difference between a job hiring you, that job like saying, you know what, this person is better.

0:23:42
It's your resume. So please get that looked at if you can by our peer coaches, by anybody in the career services office.

0:23:50
And I know that, you know, when we interact with our students, sort of the Holy Grail is having a paid internship while you're an undergraduate student. would you give to students or guidance would you give to students who to make them more competitive to for these coveted positions that are far and few between?

0:24:10
I think you're in. Go ahead, Mark. I say a variety of experience. Like if you I think I personally like a person who's been in a lot of different areas. So that's my take, I believe. So one of the keys is starting out when you, even in a freshman year, if you go to the career fair where there's employers, and this is actually researched, the more you talk to employers, the better your chances are. We often ignore it. We don't interface with our peers. We don't talk to them. They're there to help you understand what kinds of opportunities are out there and how you'd prepare. So if you start early and you talk to them and ask them questions about the pathways, even their pathways, you're gonna get good information. And doors will open for you and you're gonna learn how to prepare. The other thing is student organization, or anything where you're engaging just outside of your day-to-day work, developing leadership skills, team players, those kinds of things, when you engage in co-curricular, and when you listen to other professionals, they're gonna tell you what you need to do. Service learning is another thing, volunteering and gaining skills that way and gaining new perspectives. And those are all important professional development. Don't be afraid to branch out.

0:25:48
And I'll get you to out of here on this final question. You know, if you had a crystal ball, what what would you put in place? That isn't currently in place for in the career services office or to help better prepare students for the transition or to be successful in their careers?

0:26:04
I guess I would say, and this is one of the things that we're working on, is sort of early exposure programs that, one, help students become aware and familiar with various work life opportunities. being able to tour employer workplaces that they might aspire to professionally, and then programs that help them get internship ready. Because the internships and those kinds of career-related experience are really key in launching your career after graduation. And in order to prepare effectively, it's often more than one internship. It's often more than one. So we want students to come in as sophomores, ideally, and work with us to help prepare and be able to apply for very competitive internships that can be life-changing. Anything you want to add, Mark, with your, I wish I'd known about career services, right? Or I wish I'd participated.

0:27:07
My take would be, I mean, if we wanted to add something that's not already here on the amazing things that we already have, I would add, and this is a personal thing to me, I don't know if it fits really under career services, but I think it does, because it honestly like hindered my like career start and stuff. I want to see like a like a driving program or something, like a transportation program, because I think a lot of our students, a lot of our out of state students, like the problem of them finding a job or something is there is the transportation to the job. So like, sometimes they just can't get that far. And it's because they come out of state, they don't have like a license, or they don't have like just means of transportation. So I like to see like, I don't know, maybe us team up with the driving school in the in the community, and work out something. But that's far fetched.

0:28:06
Right.

0:28:07
So it could be transportation, Mark, but it could be even funding for you to go to a professional development conference where you're exposed, you get better exposure, or you can get to an internship out of state that you never otherwise would have had access to. Yes, those are some of the, that could be on the wishlist.

0:28:26
Yeah, something like that. Well, I want to definitely thank you two for taking time for your schedules to join us today.

0:28:27
And you shared a wealth of information. Sort of my key takeaway was really, you know, early and often visit your office. Learn more about how your offices can support students success in their journey toward not just getting through school, better prepared to land the job of their dreams as a result of earning their degree and just all of the technology that and new techniques that you've put in place in the career service off, you know, from the peer career coaches to all the different platforms like Handshake and others that are in place. And so I especially was intrigued by hearing about the badges, you know, for communications and cultural intelligence, professionalism, and communication or commitment. So thank you for sharing that and I know that our listeners are going to benefit greatly

0:29:21
from this session. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. from this session. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. That's a wrap!

Transcribed with Cockatoo